IPCC's 6th Assessment, My Climate Tipping Point, Social Taxonomy, and a Library
Here are 5 ESG insights you might have missed this week:
IPCC's Report Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis-
The Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 1 report was written by hundreds of scientists and synthesised more than 14,000 pieces of research. The final summary for policymakers was approved, after changes, by 195 countries through the United Nations.
The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change.
It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.
Source: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/
I’ve Hit My Climate Tipping Point-
Understanding global warming intellectually is not the same as feeling its presence in your daily life—or seeing photos of a 50-foot wall of fire.
Some of the strange weather that people around the world have experienced recently is just that: weather. Natural variations in temperature and moisture. But you can live through only so many “once in a lifetime” rainstorms or heat waves before concluding that they are not once in a lifetime after all. Something is very wrong.
What has given me hope, oddly enough, is the coronavirus pandemic. In less than two years, scientists have created multiple vaccines against a previously unknown disease, and governments have begun to distribute them worldwide. Yes, the vaccine rollout suffers from the same problems that climate policy does; the richest countries attend to their own needs first. (Constant high temperatures are especially dangerous in countries where people have to work outside and can’t afford air-conditioning to cool themselves at night. Floods are made worse by cheap, unprotected housing. Wildfires rage more fiercely where the local population lacks enough fire trucks to tackle them.) But the lesson of the coronavirus is that proximity to disaster can change minds, even among those who feel that living in a rich country can insulate them from harm.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/ipcc-report-my-climate-tipping-point/619700/
Understanding The Climate Performance Of Investment Funds-
Analysis from Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership found that the present disclosure of fund performance does not allow investors to understand and compare the alignment of funds with the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The report aims to foster familiarity with the temperature score landscape by examining the building blocks of existing methods. It proposes a simple, transparent and scientifically robust method that translates portfolio emissions into a metric expressed in degrees Celsius, to report portfolio alignment with the Paris ambition.
The method aims to answer the question: “What would be the global mean temperature increase at the end of the century if the entire economy had the same emissions intensity as this portfolio?”.
European Social Taxonomy-
The European Commission Platform on Sustainable Finance has shared their draft report on developing a Social Taxonomy.
The group was asked to consider the relationship between the social and environmental taxonomies and the regulatory environment. The group identified four main differences between a social and an environmental taxonomy.
The suggested structure of a social taxonomy would be both vertical and horizontal, with the vertical dimension focusing on products and services for basic human needs and basic infrastructure. The horizontal dimension takes into account impacts on different groups of stakeholders affected by economic activities –workers, including value chain workers, consumers and communities.
Organizing For Sustainability Success: Where, And How, Leaders Can Start-
As sustainability becomes more of a strategic and operational imperative, executives must lead the way to set up a sustainability organization that’s right for their companies.
The article outlines four ways that leaders can guide the organizational redesign of their sustainability work and why they must think differently about sustainability compared with other, more traditional business issues.
Design according to sustainability topics, not sustainability overall
Give your central sustainability team the decision rights to execute change
Find the structure that best fits your sustainability agenda—and your organization as a whole
Prioritize the design of processes and governance—rather than reporting lines—that account for sustainability’s complexity and dynamic nature
One more thing: Altiorem, the world’s first community built sustainable finance library. An amazing website with hundreds of tools and resources, because as their team says, everything we need to build a better future already exists today! And they help us find it.
Find the library here: https://altiorem.org/
Do share your comments or the content you think our community should not miss!